Pokemon Judge Receives Lifetime Ban Following Harassment of Transgender Players at Tournament

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I saw this story break on Facebook and really started wondering what would make someone who apparently got to the position of Judge start following players, especially groups of players, and harass them. Especially without considering there are witnesses and video evidence that will surely be taken.
Actually, very early when I got into being a TO I had a situation with another TO where we met on completely friendly terms and played a few games, but later on he posted on his Instagram a vague story about how "someone" played with him and tried to cheat him, which weirdly paralleled our meeting. Just completely made up our interaction. As far as I know their league fell apart and I'm not surprised.
 
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PartTimeTCGCollector said:
Toxic people, and I have some in my family. Why people choose that route varies, but there is also bystanders that just watch and not intervene when it is reasonable. We live in a corrupt society.

1. Most people just go with the flow and not think. Most people never evolved away from their primitive ancestors with primitive and pitiful mentality.

2. You have people that are comfortable wearing an apparel that has a name of a professional athletes who by the way could careless on what happens to you as long as you buy their products.

3. You are a loser, a weak person if show you appreciation to those that treat you with utmost care (momma's boy, wuss, etc.). Okay, will Lebron James be there for me rooting while I take my school exams, losing weight, help me out? OF COURSE NOT!

4. I suffer from gynecomastia; therefore I should be repeatedly kicked on the floor just because I am different all while those who appear on television and social media who are well above SHOULD BE FURTHER UPWARD. THAT'S MANDATORY PEOPLE!!! BECAUSE THEY ARE SOMEBODY!!!!

5. I can go on and on, I hope to crack this asinine, primitive philosophy so the next stage of evolution kicks in with species far intelligent and absolutely no need of pride, bias, gluttony, and going from selfish to selfless. Forgive me for ranting, but I am sensitive when it comes to bully issues.

If anyone watched the movie First Knight (1995) the roundtable reads "In serving each other, we become free." There is no alternative.
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“You are weak if you who appreciate for those who help you” what. I think you should be thankful for those who help you. I appreciate those who care about me. Cause without them, I wouldn’t be here rn
 
My deep respect for the people who did it! Is sad to know that this is just the tip of the iceberg... the amount of "recreative" racist, LGBTphobic, ageist and elitist behavior that still exists in competitive play is absurd. This community is mainly composed by white, from middle-high to extremely rich people with masculinized and hedonist behavior, and here in my town, this posture of the top players clearly scares away kids, women and more civilized people. Even though there are sincere efforts from tpci to make politics and compliance for a more inclusive environment, theres still a lot of work ahead....
 
ProfesserPopplio said:
“You are weak if you who appreciate for those who help you” what. I think you should be thankful for those who help you. I appreciate those who care about me. Cause without them, I wouldn’t be here rn
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Exactly, but many people, some in my family and plenty in south Florida, are typical ungrateful people who does not see beyond themselves.
 
It’s nice to see TPCi dish out lifetime bans to genuine dirtbags, the last time I saw something like that happen was when one of the main offenders responsible the infamous laptop-and-binder theft that soured Worlds 2013 for several people (and even then they were only giving a warning for it since the theft occurred after the tournament, the problem player was banned during Philadelphia Regionals later that year).

And as it’s been said a few times here TPCi still has a lot of work to do, I’m still wondering if TPCi ever did anything about that one xenophobic judge at last year’s LAIC that DQ’d a younger player and refused to listen to other competitors who watched the match because they were “foreign and biased”.
 
Excellent. I hope such decisive action sets a precedent for future events. Bigotry has no place in this world.

Perhaps, if we're lucky, those in this very thread who think otherwise will get banned here as well.
 
I'd like to hear the judges side or see some evidence of this. If true that the judge did this then certainly, good on Pokemon but there are two sides to every story. It wouldn't be the first time some group cooked up a story to push an agenda of false hate. Jussie Smollett....
 
Well, good to hear they're gone. If that person worked for Blizzard, I'm 100% sure they'd have been able to keep their job for another 10 years, no matter the hit that the company's reputation would take as a result. Maybe they should ask Bobby Sata- er, Kotick, if his business has any openings, now that they're looking for work again? xD
 
Ignoramus said:
This guy is an idiot, and deserves to get banned for bringing politics into Pokémon. You're not going to change the minds of mentally ill men at a tournament for a children's card game.
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We've seen Pokémon bring in politics into itself over the years – their vocal support of movements like BLM, some kind of confusing (confused?) show of support for Ukraine in a war between Russia, etc. and there's this sort of passive-aggressive edge to it where it knows people will disagree but ignores/marginalizes any disagreement. People who disagree aren't necessarily going to go quietly and will read this instead as a situation where they almost necessarily inject their counterviews into the discussion.

FWIW anyone sniffing around this comment and thinking "this isn't sufficiently pro- or anti-" is not going to get what they want. The people this person harassed were being harassed and he should be banned for harassing them. I am not going to say whether or not they're mentally ill – because I feel very strongly that a Pokémon card game forum (or league, or tournament) isn't the correct venue to have that kind of a conversation. I also feel very strongly that a Pokémon card game forum (or league, or tournament) isn't the correct venue to pretend that this isn't a highly socially contested matter, with very strong emotions and feelings on both sides. Indeed, this is where the "pro-" side actually tends to lose me, because there's this consistent effort to pretend there isn't a problem, that people like this are isolated incidents and don't represent a view that a significant portion of our society holds, and out of hand dismiss it.

In other words, I think a lot of TPCi's actions over the last few years have contributed to exactly this sort of situation occurring, and it's a combination of everything I said above; namely, that it's passive-aggressive, bad faith, disingenuous to pretend a corporation dipping its toes into making political statements/voicing views on these matters wouldn't come back to bite them, and even if it does, it's not their fault because anyone who disagrees is wrong.

"There's no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism" is a phrase that's often been bandied about on the internet but for all the jokes it's a truism, and seems to be one that people either refuse to believe in, or want to negotiate with to be less true. In the past it was "a portion of proceeds from this sale will go to X" and that was fine (although there were definitely implications about whether this was a kind of 'whitewashing' of consumerism/moral licensing), and then "for every product you buy, another product will be sent to an impoverished country" which was fine (even if never actually true), and now it's developed into corporations voicing their political views on various matters, and I don't understand how people can't process that this wouldn't cause problems.

One of the targeted person in this article is quoted as saying "Pokemon is supposed to be an escape for us" and I completely understand and empathize with this view. For many, Pokémon is acting like an escape from various things in our life – general malaise, personal drama, financial difficulties, political frustration, whatever. The person who was banned disrupted those people's ability to enjoy the game as an escape by bringing elements of things they wanted to escape from into it. It would be nice to see TPCi start to do the same – stop pretending the things they voice support for aren't contentious issues, stop bringing them up into the franchise at all, because it undermines the utility of Pokemon as an escape for those who don't agree with those views.
 
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Imo clearing posts on a board is almost never a good thing, it means most of the time that there is only one opinion and that is the one we think and make it to be.

If people were not outright offensive (N word for example) posts should not have been deleted.

But this also proves what I posted in my first massage here, this type of news is only dividing, while pokemon is a great tool to get connected with each other.
 
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